We've got a long, long way to happy
by swynford.dilaurentis
Summary: Beginning from Aria, Spencer and Emily's visit to Alison in jail after talking to Mike. What if Alison was a little more vocal about her feelings? How would things change? Is this betrayal something they can come back from? Ali isn't the only one who has to earn some forgiveness. Canon AU.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Just something that came to me last night, hope you guys like it! Whether or not I turn it into a multi chapter is really up to you guys - if you like it please review. fair warning if I do continue it'll probably be pretty AU from here on out or at least canon divergent.**

"Again Ali, we're so sorry." Spencer repeats after explaining everything about how Mike had found Mona in the midst of setting up this whole fake murder plan only to receive no response. Alison looked like a shadow of herself stuck in this awful place, _the place they'd put her in._ Her hair seemed less golden, her eyes more grey than blue, her usually perfect skin washed out. The Ali they knew would never have allowed herself to look so _..defeated_ , even in prison.

"..Ali?" Aria tried softly, lowering her head in attempt to draw Alison's gaze from the table.

"I'm sorry, was I meant to say something?" The blonde asked, lifting her head, though she seemed to be looking beyond them rather than at them. Her voice held none of the venom it usually did when she was angry or upset, though the three girls sitting opposite her couldn't bring themselves to be relieved. Her tone was hollow, empty. As if there was no emotion attached to it at all.

Emily and Aria both turned to Spencer hoping she'd know what to say and the overachiever turned to glance at each of them before taking a breath, trying to reanalyse the situation and find the words that might get through to the blonde, but Alison beat her to it.

"Something to _assuage_ your guilt for turning on me I guess." She mused, the tiniest of smiles curling her lips. "I'm supposed to forgive you or act like a raging bitch so you don't feel so bad. _Sorry, I'm not really in the mood for either today._ " The blonde elaborated, though once again they detected no _malice_ in her words, only exhaustion as she leaned back into her chair and lifted her arms to tuck her hair behind her ears, revealing for the first time that her skin was littered with bruises.

The three friends gasped in unison at the sight but it was Emily who asked the question

 _"_ _Ali, did someone do that to you?!"_ Her words were laced with a protective rage that used to make the blonde feel safe, but as the memory of the brunette's betrayal that night in her backyard played in her mind for the thousandth time, _Alison couldn't even bring herself to look at her._

"I've been through worse. It's nothing I can't handle." She answered, barely batting an eyelash as she placed her hands back under the table and out of sight.

"When have you been through worse, _how many fights have you been in?!_ " Aria scoffed, her guilt rising so high in her throat at the sight of her friends marked flesh, she thought she might choke on it.

" _Now_ you care?" She asked, her head cocked to one side, a flicker of amusement playing through otherwise distant eyes. "It's not like any of you asked when I came back. You might have talked me into staying like you gave a damn about me, but let's be honest you all liked me better when I was dead."

" _Alison!_ Don't—-" Spencer tried but was quickly cut off.

"Why not? It's true." The blonde shrugged, the ghost of a smile painting her face though her eyes remained sad and empty. "You can remember a ghost however you want. Pick and choose which memories you wanna keep, tell whatever story you want without having to deal with anyone getting any inconvenient facts in the way of your narrative. _Dead girls don't talk._ You could paint me as a fallen angel when you were feeling sentimental and blame me for everything that ever went wrong in your lives every other day of the week."

The girls across from her remained silent, their eyes wide and their hearts hurting. Because as much as they wanted to yell that she was crazy, that it was all some fantasy she'd created in her head, there was truth to it. An ugly shameful truth none of them ever thought they'd have to admit even to themselves. _But Ali always did have a special talent for finding out everyone's deepest darkest secrets._

"It's a little harder when you have to see me walking around, trying to make up for the awful things I did rather than acting like the monster you think I am." Alison added after a moment, sounding almost sympathetic.

It was Spencer again who was the first to recover. " _Ali, we don't —_ "

"Yes, you do." She interrupted once more, the certainty in her tone making all their hearts drop. " _It's why I'm here_. You can pretend all you want if it makes you feel better, but it doesn't change the fact that you _hate_ me so much you didn't even consider that Mona might not be dead." The blonde shrugged, tired of lying and skirting around what they all already knew.

" _Mona_ , who tortured you all for over a year, Mona who ran me out of town, Mona who ran hanna over with a car, Mona who's been in and out of Radley for years." Ali reminded, her each sentence making the others want to sink back in their seats. "One would think the possibility that this was another one of her games would've entered your min at some point, especially for _brainiac_ over here." She continued, her eyes shifting to Spencer who suddenly felt small. Because she was right, she should've thought of it sooner, but she'd managed to entirely convince herself Alison was guilty to the point she never even considered the alternatives.

"And if you _really_ thought about it, you would've thought about the fact that a girl who was able to convince everyone she was dead and stay hidden for two years without slipping up, someone who's saved your asses more than once without leaving a trace of evidence, someone who's been wearing disguises since this whole game started." She went on, none daring to meet her eyes as she reminded them, not in an _angry,_ chastising way as they'd come to expect from her but with a quiet nonchalance. As if none of it mattered at all, _as if nothing really did._ "Probably _wouldn't_ walk into the house of a known psychotic stalker notorious for getting our every move caught on tape and paint the walls red with their blood. But you didn't wanna think about it."

Spencer looked like she might try to speak but was quickly silenced once again. "You wanted me _gone._ You wanted me to _pay._ Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I just _overestimated your intelligence_." Ali finished, her last words accompanied by a hollow chuckle that made it clear how much weight she gave the possibility.

The silence that filled the air in the moments after were heavy and thick with tension. Spencer was rendered speechless by the argument presented her and having no worthy rebuttal she left it to the two either side of her to take the lead.

Seeing Aria was also at a loss for words, Emily hesitantly took over, her heart pounding painfully in her chest as she looked at her first love. She'd never felt so guilty in her life and the fact that Ali hadn't looked at her once since she got here hadn't escaped her. She knew her betrayal had to have stung the most.

"..Ali, we-"

 _"_ _Don't."_ The blonde replied softly, her eyes fixed on the wall straight ahead, still not daring to look at the brunette. She'd learned early on growing up in the Dilaurentis house how to seperate herself from her feelings when she had to, and in here that's just what she'd done. All her feelings of betrayal and _heartbreak_ weren't going to help her survive in a prison full of hardened criminals, so she'd let the part of her that wanted to cry and scream with rage lie dormant. _Locked away in a box in her mind until it was safe to let it out._

But as good as she was at sectioning off her emotions there were a few people that always managed to slip through the cracks and slither into her heart no matter how high she tried to build the walls around it. _Emily Fields_ had been at the top of that list almost since the day they met, and just hearing her voice now Alison was starting to feel tears pricking at the back of her eyes and that was the last thing she needed.

"I don't wanna hear you're sorry. _You aren't_. You're just sorry I didn't do it and now you have to feel guilty about it." She added when she heard Em start to try again, willing herself to keep the emotion from entering her voice. "But I am sorry. _I'm sorry I thought you were different."_

Those last words had felt like a bullet to the chest, tears filling the swimmers eyes almost instantly as she looked at the blonde silently begging her to take them back. To turn and _look_ at her and _see_ how sorry she was.

The others shifted uncomfortably, knowing this moment between their friends was a private one that they shouldn't be baring witness to. Though Alison apparently didn't seem to pay any mind to the fact they had an audience.

"Don't give me that wounded look, we both _know_ you're not that innocent." The blonde sighed, not having to turn to know her mermaid was crying. Her mask slipping for a moment, her voice _hitched_ and all their eyes widened at the first display of emotion they'd seen from her all day, and an unfamiliar one at that. "You got what you wanted from me and then, just like everyone else you turned your back."

Narrowing her eyes, it took Emily a moment to pick up on her meaning and when she did she felt her heart shatter in her chest. Shaking her head vehemently, the swimmer reached out to try and grab her hand but the blonde recoiled.

Meeting each others eyes, Spencer and Aria both raised an eyebrow, realising there was something more to the scene before them than either was privy to.

 _"_ _No! Ali, I —"_

" _Look_ , visiting hours are almost up so, hopefully you got what you came for, you can all go home with lighter consciences knowing you tried but I'm still the _queen bitch,_ too cruel to accept a _heartfelt_ apology and call it a day." Alison announced quickly, doing what she could to shut down the situation before it got out of hand.

"It's not like that." Spencer insisted.

"Yeah, it is." She replied with a frustrated sigh, growing tired of the back and forth. "We both know you'll think about this for a couple days and then you'll go back to your own lives and forget I'm even here. _You won't call and you won't come back_. There might be days where you'll consider it but then you'll remember how it made you feel like shit and you'll change your mind, because feeling like you're all good and righteous people being unfairly victimised by the big bad world is the only way you sleep at night."

Again, they all looked at her in shock floundering for something to say. None being able to recall a time where the great _Alison Dilaurentis_ had been so brutally honest.

"What? _Too much?_ You guys should probably go before _Evil Ali_ hurts your feelings anymore." The blonde snarked, a shadow of her trademark smirk adorning her features as she motioned to the guards that they were ready.

Emily wiped her tears and headed out the door after taking one last lingering look at the blonde who still refused to even turn in her direction. Spencer was quick to follow her out, worried about the other brunette and wanting to ask questions about what she and Aria had just seen between she and their incarcerated friend.

The smallest of them all was next to head toward the exit when she was called back.

"Aria, wait." Walking back toward Alison hesitantly, she braced herself for whatever was about to be thrown her way. "Mike's a good kid and I don't wanna drag him into this unless I have to, but if I can't get out of this on my own I'm going to have to tell my lawyers what he knows." She warned.

"Ali, you can't." She begged, instantly panicked at the thought of what might become of her brother if anyone found out.

 _"_ _I might not have a choice."_ The blonde reminded regretfully.

"Just give us a few days, okay?" Aria pleaded, to which Alison agreed before watching her run out the door.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Thank you to those who have shown interest in this story! I have decided to continue it but I'm gonna put a WARNING in here that if you're looking for some romantic emison to help you through the wait to next episode, this is not it my dudes. There is much angst and more to come. I have about thirteen chapters so far and they're all angst central ( though I am imagining a happy ending at this point but bros it's not soon trust ) I will also say I don't know how fast I'll be updating this because I don't remember a lot of the details for this season so I'm gonna try and do a rewatch of s4 / 5 before going to much further so I don't too make mistakes with what's meant to be happening at this point. I will say though that this story is going to be AU and fair warning that I'm really liking the idea of having Ali end up in the dollhouse for a bit. Anyway, I'd love to hear any feedback from you guys! Enjoy x**

The walk back to the car was slow and silent as the three girls processed Alison's words. Going in they'd felt bad for being wrong, for accusing her and destroying evidence that could've proven her innocence of a crime they now knew never took place. But they'd still felt relatively justified — she still deserved it after everything she had done, right? She was still a terrible person. At least that's what Aria was telling herself, Spencer too albeit less righteously, even Emily was holding onto her anger, though for her it was mostly out of self preservation. Knowing in the back of her mind that if she really let herself feel the weight of her mistake she might not recover from her own betrayal.

But after _that._

There was no room to tell themselves they were justified. Not as far as the swimmer was concerned.

"That was awful." Emily said as she got into the back seat of Spencer's car, clearly wrought with emotion, a pause in between each word she spoke, her voice sounded strained. As if speaking even those few words would cause her chest to cave in.

"Yeah." Spencer agreed quietly as she sat unmoving behind the wheel, emotionally drained as she replayed the conversation over in her head.

 _"_ _We're never gonna be able to make this right."_

"Em, come on it's gonna be okay." Aria tried to sooth, hearing the heart break in her friends voice.

" _How_ is it going to be okay?!" The brunette snapped back, her eyes filling with unshed tears. "Ali's in jail and _we_ put her there. She looks like someone sucked out her soul, she doesn't even sound like Ali." She went on, trying and failing to keep her emotions under control, sure that the sight of the blonde either unwilling or unable to look at her would stay with her forever.

"That definitely was worse than I remember it being. I forgot how good she was at picking us apart." Spencer mused, her own voice laced with guilt as she wondered how she could get it all this wrong.

"Yeah, well maybe we deserve to be picked apart this time." Emily retorted instantly with an anger directed more at herself than her friends.

Sighing heavily, Aria looked between her friends, _still not ready to jump on the guilt bandwagon as far as the whole situation went_ , before trying once again to sooth her distraught friend. "Em, don't let her get to you like this she's just _lashing out_ beca—"

"No, she wasn't and you know she wasn't. That wasn't Ali just being a bitch, she was broken and _we_ did that to her." The tanned girl interrupted, her rage quickly turning on her petite friend as she defended the blonde.

"Look we don't have time to think about that right now, if we don't find out who's really doing this she's gonna throw mike under the bus." Aria snapped, already tired of the attitude.

"You mean like what he and Mona did to her."

" _Hey!_ Don't—"

"What? Just because he's your brother, he's innocent? He _knew_ she had nothing to do with this and he didn't tell _anyone_. Not the police, not even you and now Ali is in jail and if we cant figure this out she might stay there."

Spencer looked at Emily through the rear vision mirror with wide eyes, noticing the girl's chest was heaving with how worked up she was getting. " _Guys, lets not—_ "

"Look I don't know what she was talking about back there and you two obviously have some _thing_ going on but don't let her guilt you into becoming her puppet again just _bec—"_

 _"_ _I'm not her puppet!"_ Emily roared, a warning glare in her eyes as she met Aria's gaze.

"Well then stop acting like she's innocent! There's a reason we thought she was A." The petite brunette snapped back, refusing to be intimidated.

"Yeah! We're all _assholes_."

"Ali's done _a lot_ of shit that could've ended her up in there just as easily—"

"So have the rest of us!" Emily interrupts before Aria can finish making her point. "And she knows just about all of it. If she wanted to she could have us all sharing a cell right next to her. _But we aren't_. We're all free and she's stuck in that _horrible_ place because of _us_ so **stop** acting like she's the devil."

With that the car is left in momentary silence. Unable to think of anything to say in rebuttal the smaller brunette turns to the driver in search of assistance but finds only a shrug and a guilt ridden "She has a point." So she sinks back into her seat and tells Spencer to start driving as she tries to think of how she's going to get her little brother out of this mess.

...

Alison had been barely managing to go through the motions since they left. Her mind completely occupied with thoughts of her friends, _of Emily._ There was a large part of her that wanted to meet the girl's eyes when she'd asked, to find comfort in those eyes the way she had so many times before. But a larger part was afraid. Afraid that when she looked at Emily again she wouldn't see her mermaid, the woman she wanted so badly to be worthy of. Afraid that instead she'd see the girl standing in her backyard, preventing her escape with cold, hard eyes and an unmoving jaw.

From the others the betrayal had stung, the taste it left in her mouth was bitter, but it wasn't a surprise, at least not entirely. She knew they were all carrying their own grudges and resentments and in all honesty she had been expecting them to turn on her eventually. But from _her?_ It felt like her heart had been ripped from her chest.

It was an unfair standard she knew, _especially_ after what she'd put Emily through when they were younger, but with the ache in her chest now, Alison wondered whether she'd ever be able to really get over it.

So caught up in her thoughts was she that Ali unwittingly let her guard down. Forgetting to watch her back whilst trying to deal with her emotions. It was exactly the reason she had avoided those eyes, _but it seemed the effort was in vein as she felt herself pressed up against a wall._

The woman currently pressed against her was a lifer she'd met a few times before, _curtesy of A,_ she was sure. She was also the one who'd littered her arms with bruises with the help of a few of her friends. "Hey, prom queen." She grinned, exposing her yellowed teeth as she got in Alison's face.

The blonde didn't respond other than to push back in attempt to free herself, promptly receiving a blow to the jaw for her efforts. She tried not to cry out, the impact causing her to bite her lip hard enough to leave blood running down her chin.

Looking back at the other inmate who was easily twenty years her senior, Alison held onto a silent rage as she planned her revenge. She'd already found out from one of the guards that had taken a liking to her that the woman's name was Rebecca and her cell was two blocks down from her own. All that was really left was to wait for this brute to make the first move.

 _"_ _I bet you taste just like strawberries."_ Rebecca chuckled in a way that made the blonde feel as though she were about to be violently ill. "I'll see you tonight." She promised with a predatory smirk meant to intimidate the fresh meat.

What she didn't know was that her visit was exactly what Alison was counting on.

…

"How'd it go?" Hanna asked walking into Emily's room and throwing herself onto the other girl's bed. The swimmer barely even acknowledged her entrance though as she remained silent and brooding as she sat looking out her window.

 _"_ _That good, huh?"_ The blonde mused, propping herself up on her elbow as she stared at her friend, waiting for her to say something.

"I can't believe we thought she was _A_." She huffed, breaking her silence with a slight shake of her head as she continued to wallow in her self loathing.

"Well it made sense." Hanna shrugged, trying not to get too heavy on the subject. _"Still kinda does."_

"You wouldn't be saying that if you'd seen her in there." Em snapped, her gaze finally moving from her window to the blonde as she levelled her with a warning gaze. It was too late to be protective, the damage was already done. That painful truth she was well aware of but she was she was planning to make up for it at every chance she could apparently.

The blonde held up her hands in surrender, letting it be known she wasn't about to argue that point and Emily narrowed her eyes at the girl, worried what her nonchalance may mean regarding her impending visit. "You are gonna go aren't you? _She asked about you, you know_."

"Yeah, I'll uh, I'll go see her." Though her voice hardly sounded certain. She'd spoken briefly to Spencer about what Ali had to say before she'd come and she wasn't exactly looking forward to facing her friend after what she'd said the last time she paid her a visit. But if the look on Emily's face was anything to go by there was no chance she was getting out of her turn.

"I'll go, _promise._ I'll bring her some magazines or something." She conceded, relaxing when Emily's gaze finally let up.

"I should've brought something for her, I didn't even _think_ of that." The tanned girl mused, more to herself than Hanna as she thought over what she could bring the girl on her next visit. _And how early was too early to try and go back._

"Relax, I'm sure she was glad to see anyway, _you're the favourite remember_." Hanna replied with a teasing tone that was meant to make her friend smile, it seemed she was fresh out of luck today however because Emily looked like she might burst into tears at the comment.

"She wouldn't even _look_ at me." She confided, her voice a pained whisper, having to bite her lip after she spoke to keep it from quivering.

"I mean she's gonna be pissed for a while, sure." Hanna offered, again in attempt to make Emily feel better as she got up and moved to sit beside her at the window. "We did kinda set up a human barricade to stop her from getting away."

The brunette let out a humourless chuckle, her face giving way to despair as she thought back on the look of betrayal on the blonde's face as they pushed her toward the waiting police. _"Thanks for the reminder."_

 _"_ _Em_ , she'll get over it." Hanna assured, placing a comforting hand on her friends leg.

"Yeah, because Ali's never been good at holding a grudge." Emily scoffed, running a hand roughly through her hair as she tried to keep her emotions at bay once more.

 _"_ _You have a point."_ The blonde agreed, having to take a moment then to think of something optimistic to say. "Look once we get her out of there, I'm sure all its gonna take is some decent grovelling and she'll be back to her old self in no time. _We'll be one big happy family._ "

"Do you think she still wants that?" She asked her arms folded over her chest as she looked down at her knees, so torn up over the whole situation she could feel her face starting to hurt from frowning. "We made the whole _us against her_ thing pretty clear, it might be a little hard for her to see us as _family_."

"What'd she even say to you?"

…

She waits, watching as the Rebecca walks in. So focused on the trap she'd set placing pillows under the covers of her bed to imitate her form that she didn't notice the blonde hiding in the shadows behind her. Alison stood still like a lioness ready to pounce at exactly the right moment, attacking only as the taller woman bent over her bed.

With impressive speed, the blonde wrapped a rope fashioned out of a ripped sheet around the inmate's neck and tugged it as hard as she could toward the floor, causing her to have to arch over backward uncomfortably.

It was a trick she'd learned from a friend she'd met in New York and it'd been one she'd made sure never to forget, because it required very little strength and this way she was too off balance to make an attack.

If she tried to straighten herself even a little she'd be choking herself, the same if she tried moving to either side with how tightly Ali was holding the rope and her spine made it impossible for her to go any lower. She was trapped until _if_ and _when_ the blonde decided to show mercy.

 _"_ _Hey leather face, how's it feel to be the prey?"_ Alison sneered, her face hovering only inches above the other woman's.

Rebecca replied with a predictable, "fuck you, blondie." As she attempted to claw the material away from her neck.

 _"_ _Bet you wish you could."_ The blonde mocked, squeezing the rope a little tighter, watching as the other started to turn red as she gasped for air. She wasn't usually a violent person. Ali never got physical with anyone unless it was _absolutely necessary_ to defend herself and even then, she'd never done something like this before. But there was a dark, twisted part of her that was really _enjoying_ it. Enjoying the feeling of having someone's life in her hands after having spent years helpless as hers was stripped away from her bit by bit.

When she noticed the woman looked close to passing out, she relaxed her hand ever so slightly and allowed her a moment to gather what air she could before speaking again.

"You tell whoever put you on my case that I'm _nobody's rag doll_ , you got that?" She all but growled, to which she received a throughly confused look as if this woman had no idea who she was talking about before Rebecca nodded as best she could.

Furrowing her brow, Alison lost some of her momentum at the response. _Had she been wrong? Was A not putting her up to this?_ Deciding those questions could be saved for later as she noticed the Rebecca's shaky legs struggling to continue holding her up.

Leaning down and pulling the rope a little further towards the ground as well, much to the contorted inmate's dismay. Alison chose to end the night with one final message, her blue eyes were like ice as they met the hazel hues of her tormentor turned victim, her smile carrying a sinister edge.

"And the next time you think about jumping me there are a couple things you should remember; I'm in here for murder, half the guards in this hole are sweet on me _and I know where you sleep too_."

Tightening her grip on the rope once more, the blonde dragged the other woman choking and stumbling out of her cell before letting it go and allowing her to fall in the hallway.

 _"_ _Sweet dreams."_


End file.
